Traffic accidents have traditionally resulted in long highway back-ups, injuries to motorists, and a great deal of anxiety for other motorists who are caught in the resulting back-ups. These problems are even further compounded when a traffic accident, with injuries, occurs on a heavily used bridge. The limited space associated with a conventional bridge usually prevents a motorist from simply going around such an accident, and as a result, the bridge practically becomes a parking lot for many motorists who arrive on the bridge just after the accident occurs. In many cases, motorists are trapped on the bridge until the accident scene is cleared, and if injuries have occurred, the accident is usually not cleared until well after emergency medical service (EMS) personnel have arrived and subsequently removed any victims of the accident and/or damaged vehicles.
Unfortunately, for the EMS personnel, they too are affected by traffic back-ups, and as a result, arrive at the scene later than would otherwise be expected. Although EMS personnel have traditionally been able, to drive conventional ambulances on highway shoulders or even across grass median strips to thereby circumvent a traffic back-up on a highway, they are usually unable to do the same on a bridge. There tends to be more limited space on a bridge, and motorists who are trapped on the bridge and are unable to get around the accident, become obstacles for the EMS personnel. Often, the only way around the traffic may be a walkway or retaining wall at the edges of the traffic lanes. This space is frequently too small for and useless to a conventional ambulance, and as a result, EMS personnel are often forced to leave their ambulances or other vehicles at the end of the bridge, and hand carry equipment to the scene. Alternatively, EMS personnel can also block opposing traffic, travel across the bridge via opposing lanes, subsequently turn around, and approach the accident scene from an opposite direction. Whichever of the two aforementioned approaches is used, the delays incurred can be substantial. A delay in EMS personnel arriving on the scene will, at best, cause further delays in clearing wrecked vehicles from the scene of an accident. However, at worst, these time delays could cost the lives of injured people at the scene of the accident.
In many cases, it is also important that the victim be immobilized and treated before being transported to the hospital. Thus, there is also a need for the EMS personnel to arrive promptly with equipment such as stretchers, backboards, neck braces, drugs and other treatment devices. Since most of this equipment is kept on an ambulance, it becomes even more important that the ambulance accompany the EMS personnel all the way to the scene, and that the ambulance not be left at the end of the bridge.